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The New Zealand Division, recovering in northern France after a difficult winter in the Ypres Salient, was among forces rushed south to the Somme. It began moving by train on 24 March, 1918. Attached to General Sir Julian Byng’s Third Army, the New Zealanders became part of Sir George Harper’s IV Corps, with which they would serve for the rest of the war. Sent forward to Hédauville in the Ancre Valley to fill an apparent 7-km gap between Hamel and Hébuterne, they moved into position just as the Germans mounted a new drive towards Doullens.

Erik Lowendale could have been involved in these activities, when he served in the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in the spring of 1918.

Erik Lowendale

Erik Lowendale was born as Erik Gustaf Konstantin Löfvendahl in Lundby parish, Uddevalla, Sweden, on March 1st, 1891. He was raised by his mother Hedda Maria Andersson Löfvendahl and his father Johan Alfred Andersson. Erik had six siblings.

Erik’s father died in October 1900, when Erik was nine years old, and the children grew up with their mother. His mother Hedda was also called Hulda according to the Swedish church books from the period.

It is not known when Erik left Sweden, but he was a sailor, and belonged to the Uddevalla Naval Corps, when he is noted as absent in the Swedish Church Books around 1915.

Erik signed his Military attestation papers in March 1916, but there are also some notes in the New Zealand criminal records from 1915, so he must have left Sweden earlier than 1915. As many other Swedish born individuals, who were sailors, Erik may have jumped ship in New Zealand, reason unknown.

Erik settled down at Stewart Islands, south of the Southern Island, New Zealand. he stated his profession was a fisherman.

In his attestation papers he wrote that he was born in Lerwick, but that should most likely be Lervik, outside Strömstad, north of Uddevalla, on the Swedish West Coast. He could of course also has stated the town of Lerwick, Shetland Island, as he may have sailed there on his journey as a sailor. Who knows.

In the CWGC archive it says that he is born at Lovendal, but that should be “as Lovendal”. Her you can also see that his mother is called Hulda instead of Hedda, as mentioned in the text above.

Erik was killed in action on April 11th, 1918, when he was fighting with his unit in the area between Hédauville and Ancre Valley, north of Albert, in France. He is today buried in Englebelmer Communal Cemetery Extension, France.

You will reach the headstone in the extension by going through the communal cemetery and then up to the left corner.

Erik has some more notes in his service records, about offences towards military police and officers, and I can see in front of me how he was a bit of a rough sailor. He entered Etaples in France in September 1916, and experienced a lot before he met his final destiny. May he rest in peace.

He is not forgotten.

I am now at a stage in my research where I look more into Swedes who emigrated to the USA and participated in the Great War in US Army.

A while ago I was asked to write an article about my research and I decided then to write about Swedish Immigrants who participated in The American Expeditionary Forces when they went over to Europe.

Below you can find a link to my article at the association Doughboy Foundation who is working in partnership with the U.S. WWI Centennial Commission. It was an honour to contribute and I will highly likely write more articles about Swedish born individuals who emigrated to the USA and participated in the War.

Link to the article

Earlier, in 2021, I wrote a blog post about those Swedish born soldiers, who fell in the Great War, were brought home and reburied in Sweden. You can read that blog post here:

Home to Sweden

At that time I had only found nine of those 17 in total that I know about now. For a period of time I have been thinking that it can be more than those 17, but the other day I found an old article in an issue from the Magazine “American Legion” which on page 22 mention those soldiers from other countries than the USA, who were brought home to their countries of birth.

In this magazine it is mentioned that it was 17 soldiers who initially were buried in France or Belgium, who later were disinterred and transported to Sweden. Of those 17 soldiers 15 were born in Sweden, although two of them were born by Swedish parents in the USA. Those two were Albert M Benson (Albert Markus Eugen Bengtsson), born in Brooklyn, and Herman I Hermanson (Herman Irving Hermansson), born in New York.

As I now have 17 of them in my research, who I found by manually searching through the casualty cards of each soldier, I am now quite sure that it is only those 17 that were brought back to Sweden.

The reason for why the soldiers were brought to Sweden was probably that the descendants were asked in the 1920s if their sons or husbands should be brought back to US, remained buried in France or Belgium, or brought back to the country of birth.

Some of the relatives to these soldiers answered that they wanted them to be sent home to Sweden, and they got their wish granted. The reason for that was probably that the majority of the relatives lived in Sweden, and they wanted to be able to visit their fallen.

Below you will now find all of the cards from those 17 soldiers that were reburied in Sweden.

I have only managed to find and visit one soldier of those 17, Ernest Johnson (Ernst Hildemar Valentin Jonsson) from Örsjö, Kronoberg County, Småland, Sweden.

I hope I will be able to find more burials of those 17 to visit here in Sweden.

Through my constant search for interesting Swedish connections to the Great War, I came across an interesting note about a Swedish born soldier who joined the Canadian Army just a few days after the war broke out. He was discharged in January 25, 1919, and was lucky to have survived. The soldier was John Sigfried Zetterman.

John Sigfried Zetterman was born as Johan Sigfrid Sätterman in Ransäter parish, Munkfors, Värmland, Sweden, on November 13, 1878. He was raised by his parents Ingeborg Persdotter and Eric Olsson.

His surname Sätterman is noted in the Swedish church books, and it may come from his older brother Carl E Zetterman (Karl Engelbrekt Sätterman) who called himself “Sätterman” in the church books before he left for North America in 1895. Two more siblings left for North America already in 1882 and 1891.

Johan left Sweden in November 1901, and arrived in New York in January, 1902. John lived with his brother Carl in Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana, for several years, but when the war broke out he enlisted for the Canadian Army on August 10, 1914, just a few days after Great Britain declared war. He signed his Attestation Papers for CEF on August 22, 1914.

He arrived in France February 12, 1915, and already on April 25, 1915, he received his first wound, GSW in hand and arm, during the fightings in the area of Langemark, Belgium. He was sent to rest in the 12th Stationary Hospital in Rouen, France.

He was wounded a second time during the fightings in the area of Courcelette in France, in September 1916. In June 1918 he was gassed so severely that he was sent to a rest camp in England. He stayed there until the armistice, and later on returned to Canada to receive his final discharge on January 25, 1919.

John had been a soldier of the fourth Overseas battalion in CEF. He was given a land grant by the Canadian government.

He had the honor to serve longer in the World War than any other Howard County soldier.

John died of Tuberculosis in St Joseph’s Hospital, Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada on May 30, 1928.

It is not known to me, on this moment, where he is buried today. So far he may be the Swedish born soldier that I have read about so far, that have served the longest in the Great War. May he rest in peace.

When researching for Swedish born soldiers in different digital archives, the result often comes out without any specific difficulties. You only have to be aware of what could have been changed between their emigration period and when they finally came home from the war, or when they fell and became buried on the battlefield, or at home.

It is normal that Scandinavian names and surnames were changed, especially when they emigrated to North America and Canada.

In this case it was a bit harder. I will take you through the process when I finally found out who Karl Severin Bengtson probably was in the Great War.

I like to read old digitized newspapers, and in this case I found a note about Karl Severin Bengtson (Bengtsson), how it was described to his family back home in Sweden, that he fell on the Western Front on November 8th, 1918.

My first reaction was that I thought it was a bit sad that he fell so close to the armistice.

Below you can read the Swedish text about Karl, in the second part of the text. I have translated the actual text to english below the snippet.

“-According to the message sent to the family, Karl Severin Bengtson fell on the Western Front on November 8th. He was born 1883 in Renneslöfs (Renneslöv) parish and he is mourned by his mother and his siblings.”

In the text above it is also mentioned that Harry L Carlson was killed in France. He actually fell on November 11th, 1918. His name was Harry Leonard Carlson, he kept his name and his surname, and was quite easy to find in different archives. I visited Harry last summer, in St. Mihiel American Cemetery.

Back to Karl Severin. I tried to find more information about Karl through Swedish church books and also on Ancestry. But the only results that I found on Ancestry was the facts I already knew from the Swedish Archives. No information to be found about any participation in the war. I changed the spelling, used the date of birth, date of death, but still no results. I decide to search without his surname, and also added his parents names, in this case Sven and Agneta.

I searched in the American and Canadian Archives, but still no luck.

Finally, on Ancestry, I found a Carl Swanson, with the same date of death as Karl Severin. Could this be a lead?

Below a snippet of the document I found. Normally it is hard to find the Canadian cards of “circumstance of death” regarding surnames beginning with “Sims” and beyond, due to damage of those cards.

On the card there is a lot of information that can be connected to Sweden. Mrs N Gengetson sounds like Bengtson, but it should be A Bengtson, as in “Agneta”. The village Lahelm is probably Laholm in the landscape of Halland in Sweden, here described as “Holland”. Ränneslöv parish is situated in Laholm region. Carl died of Influenza, and is buried in Canada.

I found 3215010 Carl Swanson in Library and Archives Canada, and here I got more information to compare to the facts I have about Karl Severin. Could Carl Swanson be Karl Severin Bengtsson?

Below you will see a snippet from the Canadian Archive, with some more explanations below the snippet.

The date of birth is May 29th, 1883 for Carl Swanson, and May 30th, 1883 for Karl Severin. Renslofs Saken, Sweeden is probably Ränneslövs Socken (parish) in Sweden.

The name Nita Bengtsen is probably Agneta Bengtson, as Nita is probably the nickname for his mother Agneta, and it is quite common in Sweden to call Agneta for “Neta”.

My conclusion in this case is that I have probably found Karl Severin, to be Carl Swanson. His middle name Severin and his surname Bengtsson disappeared during his time in Canada. Karl was later spelled Carl, which was very common. Karl Severin left Sweden in May 1901.

But Carl Swanson didn’t participate in the war on the Western Front, as states in the newspaper. He died in Strathcona Military Hospital, Canada, from Influenza, and he is buried in Edmonton Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in Edmonton. Below you can see how and when he probably catched his Illness, that later on led to his death.

Carl Swanson is one of few Swedish born soldiers that seems to have been drafted under the Canadian Military Service Act (M.S.A) and it looks like he was naturalized as well.

I find it very interesting to find the actual story of the different individuals I find within my research, and I can’t avoid thinking of if his family ever was informed about the actual circumstances about Carl’s death.

That will maybe be another story. May Carl rest in peace.